Dye-Sublimation Ink

It’s the chemistry behind dye sublimation that makes it the correct technique for printing on polyester and polyester resin coated products. Using a wide-format inkjet printer, dye-sub inks are printed on a special transfer paper. From there, the ink is heat transferred from the paper onto a fabric by using a heat press. The ink changes from a solid to a gas (hence the term “sublimation”) and enters the polyester fibers. The polymers in the polyester bond when heated, which allows the graphics to quickly become permanently embedded into your materials. As a heated gas, the ink becomes fully infused into the fabric instead of just printed on the surface, resulting in long-lasting, high-quality products. An inkjet printer uses only as much ink as needed to produce an image or a printed page; ink remaining from one print batch will be used on subsequent ones. The dye sublimation process is less efficient in terms of ink: the printer transfers only a portion of each of the ribbon's three primary color panels to the page. Sublimation items must have a white or light-coloured print area. Black or dark-coloured surfaces can't be sublimated. The item may lose colour over the months due to the effect of UV rays if it's permanently exposed to direct sunlight. Like all inkjet printers, the printheads may clog if they are not used frequently.